The premise of the book is that you need conflict to be both innovative and productive in the workplace. I don’t mean that everyone needs to scream at each other all the time. Who the hell wants to work in a place like that? To quote the Amazon blurb:

Harmony is sublime in music but deadly to innovation. The only way to create new, hybrid solutions is to clash. Innovation happens when we bring people with contrasting perspectives and complementary areas of expertise together in one room. We innovate best with people who challenge us, not people who agree with us.

It sounds like a recipe for chaos and confusion. But in The Innovation Code, Jeff DeGraff, dubbed the “Dean of Innovation,” and Staney DeGraff introduce a simple framework to explain the ways different kinds of thinkers and leaders can create constructive conflict in any organization. This positive tension produces ingenious solutions that go far beyond “the best of both worlds.”

Drawing on their work with nearly half of the Fortune 500 companies, the DeGraffs help you harness the creative energy that arises from opposing viewpoints. They identify four contrasting styles of innovator—the Artist, the Engineer, the Athlete, and the Sage—and include exercises and assessments for building, managing, and embracing the dynamic discord of a team that contains all four. You can also figure out where you fit on the continuum of innovator archetypes.

Using vivid examples, The Innovation Code offers four steps to normalize conflict and channel it to develop something completely new. By following these simple steps, you will get breakthrough innovations that are both good for you and your customers. This is a rigorous but highly accessible guide for achieving breakthrough solutions by utilizing the full—and seemingly contradictory—spectrum of innovative thinking.

This is a great book that I strongly recommend to anyone who wants to be more effective as an employee or a business. That’s pretty much everyone, I guess…!

TIP OF THE WEEK

I took the test and I’m an Engineer. That didn’t surprise me a bit. Remember that this isn’t a binary thing: you’re not 100% one of them and none of the other three. I think it’s a good thing to know what your dominant worldview is. Self-awareness is always a good thing and it will make you more effective as a voiceover business.

Think about the people in your life both professionally and personally. Which dominant worldview do they have? Do they complement you? Are there too many people in your life who think and act the same way you do? Do you need more or less Artists, Engineers, Athletes, or Sages in your life?

Someone once said that good leaders surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them. Be the leader of your voiceover business; listen to people who don’t think the same way you do. You may learn something!

NEWS AND NOTES

Reminder! My next Edge Studio “Business and Money 201” webinar will be Thursday, July 20th @8PM EST. That’s this week! The subject: Cost/Benefit Analysis. We’re gonna talk about crunching the numbers that is your voiceover business. Click here to register.

HAPPY HAPPYS

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

From my village to yours; this is Tom Dheere, The H is Silent, but I’m Not.

Tom Dheere is a 20-year veteran of the voice over industry who has narrated thousands of projects for clients in over a dozen countries. He is also a coach at Edge Studio, voiceover business consultant known as the Voice OverStrategist, and is currently producing the comic book “Agent 1.22”.